


Take My Breath Away

by mydogwatson



Series: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, a very dark night in Scotland, poetry is sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes words are unnecessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take My Breath Away

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone missed it, the stories in this series do not necessarily link together, although some are sequels, and many could fit into the same universe quite easily.

Sometimes it amazes me  
How strong the power of love can be.  
Sometimes you just take my breath away.  
-Tuck and Patti

The room is utterly black.

Back home at Baker Street it is never this dark; the glow of the city seems to seep in through the cracks and even the fabric of the drapes at the window. We like it on those nights when we leave the window uncovered and the moon is high enough to cast an ivory light over our bed; it seems, even to me, perfectly romantic, as that word is generally understood.

Not that such a thing is ever said aloud.

We are not poetic men. At least, there is no poetry in our words. In bed, John, at least, tends more towards profanity, probably because of his military background. At the same time, I myself often feel reduced to incoherence, despite my celebrated ability to lecture and/or pontificate [or natter on endlessly, in John’s oft-stated opinion] on many subjects.

Our poetry does not occur in what we say, that much is true, but it is there.

We are in this entirely dark room and not in our bedroom at Baker Street, because a case has brought us to the far north of Scotland where we are staying in a small hotel overlooking the water. Heavy velvet curtains close the windows off entirely from any outside illumination and no light makes its way in from the corridor outside our room. The case is now over; the killer in custody. First thing in the morning we will board a train for the long trip back to London.

But for now we are together in the complete darkness.

I am writing a sonnet on John’s skin. My fingertips move slowly, inscribing imaginary words across his body. Love through iambic pentameter.

/My lover’s eyes are something like a star./  
John is more laconic. He is creating a haiku on my shoulder, pressing a slightly callused fingertip into the skin. 5 taps. 7 taps. 5 taps. Is he even aware of what he is doing? But I understand.

/You complete my heart  
And you created my soul  
I am your construct./

We need no light, no moonglow, to move together in a pattern that is so familiar and yet always new. Always surprising.

Always breathtaking.

It is lyrical, almost musical, as if we are playing one another just as I play the violin. A couplet composed of hands and tongues and lips.

/Golden skin and gentle eyes  
Offering me a lifetime of surprise./

I feel John shifting in the bed and then he is over me and our bodies create a new vocabulary. He moves, slides, creating a sweaty friction, an ode to Us. Sex, brilliant sex, yes, but so much more at the same time. There is a noble dignity in our union and we are both aware of it and value it, although we do not speak of it. Might never speak of it. Although sometimes I imagine one or the other of us [or both of us together, in an ideal universe] slipping from life and then I will tell John just what this has meant to me. Maybe by then I can find the beautiful words that will work  
.  
Now I can do no more than gasp free verse into his neck.

/My lover’s body fits into mine  
As if by some divine plan./

And then he sighs a dactyl into my ear.

/This is the lover I desire./

As our bodies move to get even closer, as close as two separate entities can ever be, our wordless verses become more heated, more desperate. Now John will swear, softly, while his body and his mouth impress a senryu on my flesh.

/Your scent enflames me  
My heart’s core burns so brightly  
It devours us./  
And finally, finally, as I press into him, my very molecules murmur a tanka of fevered adoration against John’s belly.

/My passion for you  
Makes the stars appear each night./

In the complete darkness that surrounds us this night, the mutual explosion is so potent that I am a little surprised actual sparks do not fly.

I moan and he cries out and that is the meter that measures our life. I drop onto him, each of us equally spent, both of us silent at last.

We are not poetic men, John Watson and I, so it is not with words that we communicate at times like this.

But as we cling together in the dark, the poem that is Us takes my breath away, pulls the air from his lungs, sucks the very oxygen from the room, and the only sound is that of our hoarse gasping.

Finally, his hand comes out of the night to rest on my chest and I listen as John caresses a verse of love onto my heart.

/My lover is darkness  
In search of the light.  
I am the beacon  
He finds at night./

fini

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I am not a poet. But, of course, neither are Sherlock and John, so we shall just carry on as best we can.


End file.
